Week 5: Gay Fiction

 Title: Swimming to Chicago
Author: David-Matthew Barnes
ISBN: 9781602825727
Publisher:Bold Strokes Publisher
Copyright Year: 2010
Reading Level: 8th grade and up
Themes: grief, gay romance, coming out, gay life, friendship, parent/ child relationships, gay teens  
Awards: this book was a finalist for ALA's Rainbow Book Award

Thumbs Up or Down?: Thumbs Up! I liked it!
Book Trailer:

My Summary: This was a book which chronicled the coming out and first love a character named Alex. In the beginning Alex's mother commits suicide and so his coming out is complicated by his dealing with the loss of his mother. Dealing with his feelings, his best friend, disconnected father and a general feeling of not belonging are among some of the problems he faces in this book. Robby comes into the story and ends up being Alex's love interest. Robby is a fragile boy who was constantly beat up and picked on at his last school because he was gay. The two boys meet and fall almost instantly in love. There are a few sub-plots in the book that build up to an interesting climax. It's a bittersweet ending in this book

My Review: I really enjoyed this book the characters are really well-developed and the book is presented in a different format than most where the "chapters" are split up into vignettes for the different characters in the book. I was not surprised to find out that David-Matthew Barnes is also a playwright, being a theatre student I found his division of the book to be very monologue-esque. Though in this case with each new chapter about a character we have a lot more definition of who they are. This was a pretty quick read and I felt it flowed rather nicely. I would recommend this book to friends!